The more read it, the more I like it. Now the Antagonist burning their aleph on purpose to remove Aleph stacks from play to delay Raiders, I honestly don't see what's wrong with that. That's what the Antagonist supposed to do. It would help them on certain maps where Raiders need Aleph to continue and there's not a Dead Drop for an Antagonist to suicide to prevent them from killing them and taking the Stacks back and/or no real interactions the Antagonist can do with Objectives to counter what the Raiders are doing.

That's one of the things that makes it work, too.  The antagonist themselves hands out an Aleph stack when killed, and themselves gain an Aleph stack on killing raiders.  That means there will always be an Aleph stack available to acquire somewhere, for both sides, fueling the powers as well.

I do enjoy the antag system. I don't really try hard as antag though, and instead just make myself a sort of mini-boss to be dealt with here and there occasionally.  It's fun to actually play it like the bastard that shows up to be a problem, not a team-wiper, and still get rewards out of it.  However, it definitely has it's issues.

IF YOU LOOK AT NOTHING ELSE, DEVS, LOOK AT THIS:
MENTOR MATCHES/BELOW LEVEL 10 MATCHES NEED TO BE IMMUNE TO ANTAGONIST INVASION.  FOR F*CK'S SAKE THESE NEWBS CAN'T EVEN PUT THEMSELVES IN THE ANTAG POSITION!

FIX THE LEVEL/MMR SPREAD BETWEEN WHAT MISSIONS ANTAGS ARE ALLOWED TO INVADE- DO NOT LET THEM INVADE MORE THAN 50 LEVELS 20% APART. FOR F*CK'S SAKE, LET THESE BEHEMOTHS FIGHT EACH OTHER INSTEAD OF THE LEVEL 5'S, YOU'RE PUTTING CHIHUAHUAS AGAINST GODZILLA

My first problem with the Antagonist system is the fact it can land in the lap of newbies that have absolutely no idea what the heck is going on, and no gear to deal with it. I mean that in the strict sense- I'm in a mentor match, and the level 1's-9's suddenly see "level 292 antagonist has invaded your mission!"?  They cannot even interact with the antagonist system themselves until level 10, and may not even be informed of it until then.  How is this in any way fair to the new player, OR the teammates playing with the new guy? What if it's a non-mentor team full of sub-10's against this guy?

The game is hard enough in most cases, and trying to get friends to play more of it past lvl 8 or 9 is like pulling teeth.  Tossing an antagonist several hundred levels higher into a game, with late-game characters, stats, and fully upgraded rare weapons that have lethal abilities... It's throwing newbies against the wall like waterballoons full of blood.  I can easily see people going "THIS is what the game is like? To hell with it."

That leads me to the other main problem I have, is the level/MMR spread of antag/raider pairings.  Most antags I've seen vastly outlevel basically anyone else I've ever seen playing- most, that is. This means the same problems as listed above befall the other people playing- the game god decides to pair you with someone that's got free selection in an arsenal of characters, skills, and weapons, vs. you at level 50, whom doesn't even have half what the game could offer because of the gold and blueprint grind.  The best games I've had with antagonists is when they're largely even playing field.  That accounts for 2 of the antag games I've had.  Every one of the others went one of three ways:
1) The antag was lowbie and had bad enough stats they were like fighting a mook, sometimes easier because of the MMR difficulty stuff
2) The antag one shots entire groups of people with things like Loaht's cluster grenades, and annihilates the team before second mission phase (any mission).
3) We had a level 200+ on our team that had absolutely devastating firepower which wiped out the antag instantly every time.

There was one outlier with a lvl 300+ Harec. Guys aim was *insane.*

Still, the gear grind/level advantage is absolutely a real thing, and it's the main reason the antagonist system is an eyeroll mechanic at this point.

Even futher update:
I was able to do 2 matches.
1 I was able to select a character.
the second I was "initating mission" locked as usual. When I returned I was allowed to return to gameplay and join the match, but not select a character as I was far outside that selection window, having to quit completely and reboot via playstation button.  I was "given" Hans on a mentor match. Didn't care, got to play.

Currently stuck again on initiating mission.  For entirely arcane reasons where even the most eclectic solutions, such as changing language options, have no effect.  Yes, this is after router stuff.

I'm sitting here, about to get punished by your code again, for trying to join, rejoin, rejoin, rejoin, rejoin, and further rejoin a game.

And there is still no answer for it.

Posted in another post because reasons:
I got rewards for games 3 hours after the fact I never got to join them. They were obviously lost (judging by reward amounts), but that I never participated in them, because the game endless looped before I could even pick a character.
it's free stuff for the most part, but I don't like it. I'd much rather play for the things I'm rewarded/got my butt kicked by a decent antag over. Please fix this.

PS: the preview button in the forum isn't working.
what the hell, guys.

The first Antagonist that beat my pub team was a 109 Harec.
Won my first Antagonist match with lvl 30 Harec.
However, they had a lvl 1 Harec.  He was also the last man standing because I didn't feel right murdering a lvl 1.  I got over it and hit grapple while he wasn't paying attention.

That doesn't change the key point, however. Never pick Harec if you're new.
Never.

Me and another player suffered two desertions in the match, one right as the match started, then one five minutes later with a lvl 1 simply ditching. We fought to the end (lost of course because the enemies don't scale back), but both got 1200 gold and faction for losing, as we got 600 of each for the desertions.  He misses his blueprint (too bad).

Then, instead of getting to claim rewards, I got "you deserted your last multiplayer match and must wait a few minutes before you reconnect."

I got punished for desertion by... Playing the match to the end?

As Schneider would put it, "What... What the f---? What am I doing here?"